Kirby
Member
newbgrow said:Are you ****ing kidding me? Do you actually believe o-zone holes occur because of the lack of plants in a given area on the surface?
Source: Columbia University
I'm not kidding you. It's not specifically because of lack of plants, but rather because of the low temperatures. I suppose my intent was to explain the obvious correlation between warmer weather and co2 from plants, but even I lost myself on that statement. The ozone thrives off of the co2 from the plants, thus making it stronger and less susceptible to ozone depletion. I should have elaborated further. My apologies for stoned ramblings.
The holes open up every southern spring, towards the end August after the sun has returned to the high latitudes. It peaks in October then fades away during late November or early December. There is good reason for this timing. Ozone destruction requires 3 things:
REALLY COLD + CHLORINE (from CFCs) + SUN = DEATH TO OZONE
It has to be really cold because the chemical reactions that destroy ozone take place on ice clouds high up in the atmosphere that only form in temperatures below - 75 deg C. The ozone destroying reactions involve chlorine and also require sunlight to start them off. So ozone destruction starts as soon as the sun returns to the Antarctic in August (at Halley) and carries on until sometime in October it gets too warm for the ice clouds to form. The hole doesn't disappear immediately but instead hangs around until ozone from other regions of the world start to fill in the gap at the start of the southern summer.
Hence the reason for: and chemical reactions was found to explain the anomalously low levels of ozone during the polar springtime. This will only occur in Antartica [low temps, ice cloud formation] during the polar springtime, hence research was [likely] conducted at Halley, Antarctica.